Rioting erupts in Moscow after killing blamed on migrant

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Rioters smashed shop windows, stormed a warehouse and clashed with police in a Moscow neighbourhood yesterday in the biggest outbreak of anti-migrant unrest in the Russian capital in three years.

Demonstrators, some chanting racist slogans, vandalised shops and other sites known for employing migrant workers in the southern Biryulyovo area after the killing of a young ethnic Russian widely blamed on a man from the Caucasus.

Several hundred residents had protested peacefully, demanding justice over the killing, until a group of young men began smashing windows in a shopping centre and briefly set it on fire. A video posted on Youtube showed them chanting “White Power!” as they forced their way in.

When police in riot gear tried to make arrests, protesters threw glass bottles at them and the police fought back with batons. Video footage from the scene showed overturned cars and smashed fruit stalls.

Some in the crowd, which grew to number several thousand, set off from the shopping centre and stormed into a vegetable warehouse employing migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia.